Spin (2 page)

“Nope . . . Actually, I’m thinking
of going in another direction. It’s a job writing for a music magazine.”

“Well, well, the bairn’s growing up.”

Greer is always tossing out colloquial Scottish
expressions like “bairn” (meaning child), “steamin’ ” (meaning drunk), and her
ultimate insult, “don’t be a scrounger” (meaning buy me a drink, you miserly
bastard). Depending on the number of drinks she’s consumed, it’s sometimes
impossible to understand her without translation.

“Had to happen sometime.”

The bartender, Steve, brings us two more shots that
Greer pays for with a smile. He only charges her for about a quarter of what she
drinks, but since I’m often the beneficiary of his generosity, who’s
complaining?

She pushes one of the shots toward me.

“No, I can’t.”

“A wee dram won’t hurt you.”

“There’s no way anyone actually says ‘wee dram’
anymore. That’s just for the tourists, right?”

“I canna’ break the code of honor of my country.
Now drink up, lass, before I drink it for you.”

I upend the shot and nearly choke on it when Scott
claps me hard on the back. He’s a history major I met about a year ago at, you
guessed it, a wine and cheese. We bonded while arguing over who had deeper
knowledge of U2 and the Counting Crows (me, and me). His athletic body, sandy
hair, and frank face are easy on the eyes, and given our mutual single status,
I’m not quite sure why we’ve never hooked up. Maybe it’s the fact that he’s
twenty-two, which puts him on the outside edge of my half-plus-seven rule. (30 ÷
2 + 7 = 22. A good rule to live by to avoid age-inappropriate romantic
entanglements.)

Scott orders another round. When it comes, he
slides shot number three my way. I protest, but he flashes his blue eyes and
wide smile, and talks me into it. Into that, and the next one. When Rob and Toni
arrive a little while later, they buy the next two. And when those are gone, the
room gets fuzzy and I lose count of the drinks that come next.

The rest of the night passes in a flash of images:
Rob and Scott singing lewd rugby songs. Toni telling me she had a pregnancy
scare the week before. Me blabbing on about how I’m going to nail my interview
tomorrow, just nail it! Greer
Coyote Ugly
-ing it on
the bar as Steve plies her with more shots. Someone dropping me off at my door,
ringing the doorbell, and running away giggling. Joanne looking disappointed and
resigned, then putting a blanket over me.

I lie on our living room couch with the room
spinning around me, happy I have so many good friends, and an awesome job
waiting for me to take it.

Tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow. I bring my watch to
my face so I can see the glow-in-the-dark numbers. 3:40 a.m. I guess it’s today.
Hey, it’s my birthday.
Happy birthday to me, happy birthday
to me, happy birthday, happy birthday, happy birthday to me.

“K
atie!”

Someone is shaking me violently.

“Katie! Get up!”

The shaking gets more violent.

“Get orf me!”

“Katie, you have to get up. Now!”

Joanne rips the blanket off my face, and my eyes
are flooded with light.

“What the hell’s wrong with you?”

“Katie, pay attention. You have an interview in
fifteen minutes!”

The world sinks slowly into my still drunk
brain.

I. Have. An. Interview. In. Fifteen. Minutes.

Oh my God.
The Line.
The perfect job. The interview I have to nail. The interview I have in fifteen
minutes.

I bolt out of bed and lurch toward the bathroom.
The face that greets me in the mirror is a mess. My hair’s sticking out at all
angles, and my eyes are ringed with last night’s mascara and eye shadow. I’m not
completely sure, but I might also be a little green.

I take several deep breaths and command myself to
pull it together. Under Joanne’s reproachful eye, I fly into a fury of
preparation, washing my face vigorously while simultaneously brushing the
aftertaste of last night out of my mouth. After a few strokes of my hairbrush, I
whip my hair back into a loose twist and pick up the clothes still laid out on
my unslept-in bed.

“What happened to you last night?” Joanne asks.

I slip into my skirt and pull the sweater over my
head. “Nothing.”

“Yeah, that’s obvious.”

“Thanks for waking me up.”

“You know, someday, I’m not going to be around to
take care of you.”

“Joanne . . .”

“You’d better get out of here.”

I take a last look at myself in the mirror (not so
bad, considering) and run down to the street, searching desperately for a cab.
I’d meant to take the subway to save money, but that plan’s clearly out the
window.

In a bit of good luck, a cab shudders to a stop the
first time I fling my hand in the air. As it jerks and stops its way downtown, I
fight a bout of nausea and nervously watch the minutes tick by on the clock.

8:56. 8:57. 8:58. 8:59.

Please, please, please.

9:00.

Shit, shit, shit.

9:01.

Breathe. Nope, can’t breathe.

9:02.

Oh, thank God.

I throw money at the cabdriver and sprint across
the street through the rush-hour traffic. Cars screech and horns blare, but I
somehow make it across alive. In the glass-and-marble lobby, I blank on the
floor I’m supposed to go to. I wait through 9:03 and 9:04 at the information
counter before I’m at the front of the line. Twenty-ninth floor, thanks! The
elevator finally arrives at 9:05; 9:06 and 9:07 are spent stopping at what seems
like every single floor between the lobby and the twenty-ninth floor.

I hurry out of the elevator, fling open
The Line
’s glass door, and try to walk calmly to the
receptionist’s desk. She has spiky purple hair and a ring through her nose. She
can’t be more than nineteen.

“Are you Kate?”

“Yes.”

“Oh good, you’re finally here.”

It’s then that I notice the clock on the wall
behind her.

9:15.

I’m so screwed.

“I was stuck in traffic,” I say weakly. Even to me
it sounds like I said, “The dog ate my homework.”

“Yes, traffic
can
be
bad at this time of day.”

“Yes.”

“They’re waiting for you in the Nashville Skyline
room. It’s down that hall.”

“Thanks.”

I walk down a long hall decorated with framed
blow-ups of
The Line
’s past covers, passing a row of
conference rooms. Abbey Road. Pet Sounds. Nevermind. Nashville Skyline.

OK. Here we go.

I check my reflection in the glass that frames an
iconic shot of Dylan holding his guitar to his chest while he smiles down at the
camera. Not quite the impression I wanted to make, but surely I’m not that
color.

I knock on the door.

“Come in.”

I take a deep breath and walk in. There are six men
and women seated around one end of a long oak slab. Another photo of Dylan,
singing close-to-the-mike harmony with Joan Baez, dominates the wall behind
them.

I smile nervously. “Hi, I’m Kate Sandford. I’m
sorry I’m late.”

A small woman in her early twenties with short
mousy brown hair rises to greet me. She’s wearing a tight black sweater dress
that emphasizes her ample curves.

“Hi, Kate. I’m Elizabeth. We spoke on the phone?
Why don’t you have a seat?”

I sit at the end of the table and face the group.
I’m having trouble focusing on their faces.

“Thank you so much for seeing me. I’m sorry about
being late. Traffic.”

“We understand? This is Kevin, Bob, Cora, Elliott,
and Laetitia? Got it? Great? Let’s begin?”

“Sure.”

“Kate, we’ve been reading your pieces, and we
really like them,” says a man in his early thirties who I think is named Bob. Or
maybe it’s Elliott.

“Thank you, Bob.”

“It’s Kevin.”

“Sorry about that.”

“No problem. Why do you want to work at
The Line
?”

I clear my throat. “Well, obviously, it’s always
been a dream of mine. Of course, it would be. Anyway, I love music, and I’ve
read
The Line
forever, and, I don’t know, do you
believe in soul mates? Well, I’ve always kind of thought of this magazine as
being my journalistic soul mate.”

My heart starts to pound. What the hell is wrong
with me? Soul mates? I actually used the words “soul mates” in an interview?

I scan their faces nervously. Cora (or is it
Laetitia?) looks like she’s trying to keep herself from laughing.

“What do you think you could bring to the magazine?
What do you have that’s different from everyone else out there?” Elizabeth’s
lilting voice brings back the nausea I suppressed in the cab.

Let’s try this again. With feeling.

“Well . . . I have this real pure
love of music, you know? Like on my application? I had a lot of trouble
narrowing down my musical influences because I really love all kinds of music.
Like, I might dig a Britney Spears song, and the next minute be listening to,
you know, Korn.”

Did I just say I liked Britney Spears’s music?

Cora/Laetitia isn’t even bothering to cover up her
laughter now, and I can’t blame her. Elizabeth’s way of speaking seems to be
catching, and I’m becoming less articulate by the minute. I feel like I’m about
to throw up.

“Talk to me about the bands you’ve been reviewing
lately. Who stands out?” asks an older man whose name I can’t even begin to
guess at.

“Well, I really like this little neighborhood band
called . . . um . . . hold on . . .
it’ll come to me in a minute . . .” The color creeps up my face
as I draw a complete blank. “Um . . . I’m sure I’ll remember
their name in a second . . . Anyway, they’re this great mix
of . . . you know, that band that’s always on the radio
now . . .”

Total panic. I’ve known and remembered more about
music than most teenage boys, and I can’t remember the name of one of the
biggest bands of that very moment. One of their songs was even playing on the
radio in the cab on the way here.

I’m completely done for.

“Kate? Are you all right?” Elizabeth asks.

“I feel a little dizzy. Could I excuse myself for a
minute to use the bathroom?”

Bob or Kevin, or whoever he is, frowns, but
Elizabeth tells me where it is, and says they’ll be waiting for me.

I walk quickly past Pet Sounds and Nevermind to the
bathroom. The sharp odor of disinfectant catches in my nostrils. I splash water
on my face, and grip the side of the sink as the room spins around me.

This cannot be happening! Please, please, please.
Not today, not today, not today.

My stomach lurches, and I bolt into one of the
stalls and throw up.

And up.

And up.

When I’m done, I slump to the floor and press my
aching head against the cold tile wall, wishing I could disappear. The best day
of my life has turned into the worst in an instant. I can’t believe the
interview I’ve waited half a lifetime for is coming to this.

“Kate? Are you in here?”

Elizabeth. Fantastic. Please, please, let a hole in
the ground open up and swallow me. Maybe it can take me right down to hell,
where I belong.

“I’ll be out in a minute.”

I struggle to stand, and the room begins to spin
again. I lurch over the bowl and empty the remainder of my stomach’s
contents.

Elizabeth raps on the door. “Kate. What’s going on
in there? Kate?”

“I just feel a little
sick . . .”

I throw up again, and this time what comes out
doesn’t resemble anything I’ve ever had to eat or drink and leaves a rancid,
metallic taste in my mouth.

“You’re drunk, right?”

“What? No! I just ate something bad. I think it was
sushi.”

“I can smell it on you? The alcohol?”

As her words sink in, I slide back to the floor in
horror, my legs too weak to hold me.

“Maybe this is none of my business? But I’ve seen
this before? There are good places, you know? Like for people with problems with
alcohol?”

“I’ll be out in a minute, OK?”

“I could give you a name? Like of a group? You
know, AA?”

“I just need a minute,” I whisper. “Just a
minute.”

“I don’t think there’s any point in continuing with
the interview? When you’re ready you can show yourself out?”

I listen to her leaving the bathroom,
immobilized.

I know I have to get out of here, but I don’t have
the strength.

This is the worst, worst day of my life.

My thirtieth birthday is the worst day of my
life.

Chapter 2

Redemption
Song

W
hen I
finally pick myself up off the floor, I slink out of the building and somehow
make it back to my apartment and my bed.

And that’s where I stay for the next two days. I
don’t answer my phone. I ignore all texts. The only email I open is the formal
“Thanks, but no thanks” I receive from
The Line.

When I can’t stand to be in bed anymore, I move to
the living room couch and watch television twenty out of every twenty-four hours
in a depressed wine haze.

There’s a lot to watch. After the
escape-from-rehab-high-speed-chase fiasco, TGND disappeared. The speculation is
that she’s holed up somewhere with her on-again, off-again boyfriend, Connor
Parks, an actor eight years her senior.

Connor’s career exploded when he made the first
Young James Bond
movie four years ago, and he
now makes ten million dollars a picture. He’s living like it too, having
apparently rented (some sources say bought) an island in the South Pacific, and
this is where the press speculates endlessly that TGND is hiding.

“How can you watch that shit all day?” Joanne asks
in her twenty-seven-going-on-forty voice when she finds me in a nest of blankets
on the couch for the fifth morning running.

I kick an empty wine bottle under the couch. “What
do you care?”

“I don’t. But it might be nice to be able to watch
my own TV once in a while.”

Ah, crap. Who knew Joanne had feelings?

“I’m sorry, Joanne. I don’t mean to be such a
bitch.”

She gives me a thin smile. “Apology accepted on one
condition.”

“What?”

“You take a shower, get dressed, and go
outside.”

“That sounds like a lot of conditions.”

“Do we have a deal?”

“Deal.”

And because Joanne is right, I take a shower and go
outside for the first time in a week. The air is clean and mild in the way it
only is in spring. The first buds are on the trees, and everyone on the street
is smiling, or at least it seems that way.

For the first time in a week, I’m smiling too. It’s
hard to wallow in self-pity with warm sunlight on your face and the scent of
cherry blossoms in the air.

I walk through my neighborhood, thinking about the
state I’m in. Where my life is going. How I’ve been chasing a dream for eight
long years without really getting anywhere. Something has to give, and I have a
feeling I know what it is.

So, when I get back to the apartment, I call my
best friend, Rory. We come from the same small town a few hours north and have
been friends since kindergarten.

I fill her in on why she hasn’t heard from me in so
long.

“And then she said I should go to rehab, can you
believe it?”

“Um, what time did you want to meet?”

Rory’s an investment banker on the verge of a major
promotion. We meet for lunch in her office building—the only place I know where
she won’t cancel on me at the last minute. There’s this fifties-style diner in a
corner of the lobby, and I wait for her nervously at the chrome counter.

“Katie!”

“Rory!”

I give her a quick hug, being careful not to
wrinkle her navy banker’s suit. Her olive skin rarely needs any makeup, but
today she looks pale and drawn. She’s even thinner than usual, and her cobalt
blue eyes have circles under them that make her look more heroin-chic than city
bigwig.

“Don’t they ever let you outside?”

She makes a face. “I’ll go outside when I make
director.”

“You could at least go to a tanning booth. Or, they
have these moisturizers now that have self-tanner in them. They look pretty
realistic.”

“You’re one to talk. Haven’t you just spent the
last week holed up in your apartment?”

“True enough.”

The waitress takes our orders, and we catch up on
the small details of our lives.

“So, why’d you want to meet, anyway?” Rory asks as
she picks at the plate of food in front of her.

“I need an excuse to see my best friend?”

“I thought that other girl, Greer, was your best
friend.”

“Don’t be silly. She’s just someone to party
with.”

“If you say so.”

“Rory, you know you’re irreplaceable, even if you
become a big, snooty director-person who never has time for her friends.”

Her eyes narrow. “
If
I
become?”

“I meant when, of course.”

“I hope so. Anyway, don’t worry. I’ll still have
time for you.”

“And I promise not to mind if you’re too
embarrassed to tell people what I do for a living.”

“What do
you do for a
living?”

I start ripping my napkin into tiny little squares.
“Yeah, well, that’s kind of what I wanted to talk to you about.”

“What’s up?”

“I was, um, hoping you could get me a job. I’d be
willing to do anything, like start in the mailroom or be your secretary.
Whatever it takes.”

She looks surprised. “You want to work at the
bank?”

“Sure, why not?”

“But what about becoming a writer?”

Ouch. I thought I was a writer. Unsuccessful maybe,
but still . . .

“I’m sick of eating ramen noodles,” I say, trying
to laugh it off.

“You can do some awesome things with ramen
noodles.”

“Yeah, I should write a cookbook or something. So,
what do you say?”

She takes a small bite from her sandwich, thinking
it over. “You sure you want to do this?”

“Yes.”

“OK, let me see what I can do.”

“You’re the best, Rory.”

“Don’t you forget it.”

“Like you’d ever let me.”

T
wo
weeks later, after more interviews than it should take to become president of a
bank, I’m officially hired as the second assistant to the head of the Mergers
and Acquisitions department. I’m assigned a small interior office next to
assistant number one and told I’ll be making $50,000 a year.

As I take it all in, I feel both excited at the
prospect of solvency and sick to my stomach at the prospect of working ten hours
a day in a room with no windows. But beggars can’t be choosers, and I’m grateful
Rory came through for me.

Besides the money, the most exciting thing about
the job is seeing Rory on a semi-regular basis. When my office tour is done, we
spread our lunch out on the small worktable in her incredibly cluttered
office.

“I know you’re going to tell me you have a system,
or something, but how the hell do you find anything in here?” I say, crunching
on one of the tart pickles Rory discards from her sandwich.

“It’s camouflage,” she replies, picking up a napkin
and tucking it into the collar of her dress shirt.

“Busy office, busy woman?”

“Precisely.”

“You’re pretty crafty.”

Her lips curve into a smile. “Why, thank you.”

“And thank you for the job.”

“You’re welcome.”

“We should totally go out tonight and
celebrate.”

“I can’t. I haven’t seen Dave in a week. I need to
remind him what I look like.”

Dave and Rory have been together since our second
year of university, and he’s the only person I know who works harder than she
does. They’re scarily alike, and even resemble each other enough to sometimes be
mistaken for brother and sister. On paper they make you want to puke, but in
person, they’re just Rory and Dave: best friends and lovers. We should all be so
lucky.

“Oh, I think he’ll remember you.”

“Well, I’m not taking any chances.”

She takes a small bite from the corner of her
sandwich. The amount she eats every day wouldn’t get me to eleven o’clock in the
morning.

“So, I’m on my own?”

She frowns. “Should you even be going out?”

“Yes, Mom.”

“It’s just . . . sometimes you can’t
handle your alcohol.”

“What?”

She puts down her sandwich. “Look, don’t take this
the wrong way, but why are you working here in the first place? Because you got
drunk when you shouldn’t have, right?”

Excuse me?

“It was my birthday.”

“It was the day before your birthday.”

“Don’t wordsmith me, Rory.”

“That’s not really the point, is it?”

“What
is
your
point?”

She hesitates. “That maybe you should cut down.
Especially if you want to succeed here.”

I ball up my sandwich wrapper and stand up. “I’ll
see you Monday.”

“Katie, I’m only trying to help.”

“Well, you’re not, OK? I know I fucked up. I made a
stupid mistake. But you’re talking like I can’t have a beer with my
friends . . . like I should be in . . .
rehab
or something . . .”

“Isn’t that what that woman at
The Line
suggested?”

“She doesn’t even know me.”

Her mouth forms into a line.
“Right . . . all she knows is that you came to an interview at
nine in the morning still hammered from the night before. Silly her to think you
might need some professional help.”

My blood is boiling. “Talk about the pot calling
the kettle black.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Come on, Ror. What do you weigh now? Ninety
pounds? When’s the last time you ate even half a meal?”

She stares at me so intensely I think she might hit
me. Then she picks up the remainder of her sandwich and shoves the entire thing
into her mouth, chewing aggressively.

“That make you happy?” she says through a mouthful
of food.

We stare at one another, equally furious.

I’m not sure which of us cracks first, but,
suddenly, we’re both laughing uncontrollably.

Rory covers her mouth with her hand to keep from
spitting out bits of her sandwich. “You know, I think that was our first
fight.”

“Had to happen sometime.”

“Truce?”

“Truce.”

D
espite, and maybe because of, the fight with Rory, I arrange to meet
Greer at the pub. When I get there, she’s sitting at her usual stool being plied
with free drinks by Steve.

Steve smirks as he hands me a beer. “Hey, birthday
girl.”

“What was that all about?” I ask Greer when he
leaves.

“You don’t remember?”

I get a flash of standing on a bar stool yelling,
“Who’s the birthday girl? That’s me! I’m the birthday girl!”

“No . . . wait . . .
don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.”

“It’s a good story, lass.”

“Again with the stereotypical Scottish terms.”

“What’s wrong with being a stereotype?”

Steve brings me a shot and a beer back, waving me
off when I try to pay him.

“You don’t have to buy me drinks anymore, Steve.
I’ve got a real job now.”

“He’s not buying you drinks—he’s trying to get in
my pants.”

Steve colors and pretends he needs to wipe the
counter further down the bar.

“You’re totally taking advantage of him.”

Greer tosses her hair over her shoulder and gives
Steve a lascivious look. “Do you really think I could?”

“Please.”

“Interesting.”

I spin my stool toward Greer. “So, what’s new? I
feel like I haven’t seen you in ages.”

“It was your own self-imposed exile, remember?”

“I prefer to think of it as taking a moment. A knee
if you will.”

“A
knee
?”

“Yeah, you know, in football, when the coach wants
to tell the team something, he says, ‘Take a knee.’ It means, literally, get
down on one knee, but also, ‘Listen up, I need your attention.’ ”

She frowns. “Why would you go down on one knee to
listen to someone?”

“I guess it is kind of strange.”

“And football players do this?”

“Yes, and I mean American football, not
soccer.”

“Yes, yes.”

“Anyway, I was taking a time out to process the
state of my life.”

“And?”

“And, it turns out my life was extremely
shitty.”

“Was?”

I bring the shot to my nose, breathing in the
sweet, hard fumes. “It’s on the mend.”

She raises her glass. “I’ll drink to that.”

“Let’s.”

I pour the shot down my throat and chase it with
half my beer. As the alcohol spreads through my bloodstream I feel lighter than
I have since my disastrous day at
The Line.

It’s good to be back.

W
hat
with one drink and another, I stumble out of bed the next day sometime after
noon. I follow a trail of delicious smells to the kitchen, where Joanne is
standing at the stove in her weekend uniform of roomy flannel pajamas, making a
sauce.

“What is that? It smells great.” I pick up a spoon
and try to help myself.

She swats my hand away. “It’s not for people who
don’t answer their phones or return messages.”

“What’s up your butt?”

“I’m not your answering service.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Some girl named Elizabeth called for you a million
times yesterday.”

My heart thuds to a stop. “Elizabeth from
The Line
?”

“Yeah, I think so.”

“You must be joking.”

But Joanne doesn’t joke.

She stirs the sauce vigorously a few times and puts
the lid on. “What’s wrong with you? Elizabeth called. She wants you to call her
back. Urgently.”

I still don’t completely believe her.

“What does Elizabeth sound like?”

Joanne rolls her eyes. “She sounds like this? Like
she’s asking questions? All the fucking time?”

Oh. My. God! It
is
Elizabeth! She called. She wants me to call her back. Yes, yes, yes!

I’m so overcome with joy I actually hug Joanne. She
stands there like a board while I jump her up and down, but I don’t care.
Elizabeth from
The Line
called, and all is right in
the world.

I
spend the rest of the day in a nervous tizzy. Even though it’s Saturday, I keep
checking my voice mail every fifteen minutes to see if Elizabeth’s returned my
call. When the sun sets and she still hasn’t called, I help myself to several
large glasses of Joanne’s never-to-be-touched-by-her wine in a futile attempt to
sleep. When that doesn’t work, I flip on the E! network and watch the latest
TGND coverage unfold.